Sister Amelie at the Priory

[ItsAdventureTime]

Dear Sister Amelie of the Sisterhood of the Sibylline Vine,

I am writing to you to ask for your help on an art project I am currently working on: a compendium of an poet who has gone by the name of Elle. Other then numerous pages of their written works, I know very little about them.

The only two tidbits of information of note I was able to uncover is that they were possibly a Balladeer or Student of the Lost Hearth and that you might be the last living person to have known them personally. If you have any insights on Elle, as a person or poet, I would be incredibly grateful if you would share them with me.

Sincerely,
Zaheera Nahaat

P.S. The poster featuring you is near completion and will be published soon. Look for it in the next one or two days.

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

Honorable Zaheera Nahaat,

I had the good fortune to know Elle through her days in the Well. She came to us in the month of Hziran, IY 7787, meek and fearful, a refugee from the wide wastes. She left us on Illul 30, IY 7787, writing her name in glory to the annals of our histories.

In her time, she was an ardent servant of the Cinquefoil Quest, standing to the stage of prophecy with a glib (if nigh-incomprehensible) tongue and a worthy heart. She was subtle, quick, a deft shot with a bow, and graced with a winning smile. Despite this, for long months, she was out of place, just as so many have struggled to discern their purpose in these latter days of the Age of Ash. Her service to the Cinquefoil began with the Banda Rossa, but she was to leave their service, and sought meaning among the poets and the artists and the flowering chivalry of the Balladeers.

We spoke of poetry on more than one occasion, as she sought me out for instruction (as I often provide on the particulars of meter, rhyme, and verse). She was not classically trained, but where I set a poem to a clear structure and hammer it into deliberate shape, she worked her pen ad hoc to give voice to flowing couplets and triplets, rhymed and unrhymed, that spoke from her heart and soul.

We remember her well, this servant, scarred in a dozen battles. And through her foreign accent, barely understood at the best of times, by the character of her deeds we knew her to be among our worthies. I trusted her, on more than one occasion, with my life, and she oft put her own in my hands.

I was not ten paces away when the wretched Sibilant General Sllssyr, called "the Gaoler", cut her down, just before Gianluca Buonaventura was to fall in the last moments of the Battle of the Dead Forest. I enclose with this letter a parcel containing my work on that battle for your review. She fought with her last breath to secure our withdrawal from the field, and for her sacrifice, only two of ours were lost and we were able to rally to the final, fateful hour at the Red Hill. She was avenged later in the battle, my spear and the Garden's wrath in aid of the terrible work, when Sllssyr was at last brought low.

She was called to service, she answered the Cinquefoil charge with honor, and she died so that the multitudes of refugees we had gone to save would not die in the wastes. I have no doubt that she would have chosen a different hour, for she loved life, but knowing that we are all fated to die, I can think of few worthier moments.

I penned this work for her, which has not been published in any place. I was never quite satisfied with it, but submit it to your review:

O she of sharpened tongue and wit;
O she that sought of purpose fine;
No battlefield that she would quit;
Nor ever, once, a broken line.

For long was she in service found;
Her path of myriad winding ways;
Saw she, at last, that Cinquefoil ground;
That Wand'rer's path to better days.

And when the worst stood fast against;
Those worthies pressed on every side;
She took the fore though she had sensed;
That death with her would soon abide.

Alight, O Cinquefoil, gleaming soul;
Arise, and up, your arms of steel;
Her body slain at bitter knoll;
Her mem'ry writ upon the stele.

If I may be of aid to your works in any other way, write to me, and I will answer.

Sister Amélie


[Enclosed, as promised in the letter, is a copy of The War of the Southern Wastes: A History, with a bookmark inserted at Chapter VI. Another bookmark appears at Appendix B where Elle's name may be found among the list of the slain. A copy of the Book of the Martyrs' entry on Elle is also provided.]